


C8H11NO2

by halcyo



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, M/M, Teacher AU, i use a lot of italics when i'm writing at three in the morning hello, mlm author, they're both teachers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halcyo/pseuds/halcyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Palmer is the most popular teacher at NVHS. And he will NOT let the new chemistry teacher take that away from him. The new chemistry teacher, with his perfect hair and his perfect teeth and his perfect attendance record for all of his classes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	C8H11NO2

Cecil Gershwin Palmer was the most  _ defensive  _ teacher in the entire faculty of Night Vale High School, and with good reason - the school had been on the verge of cutting the Public Speaking class entirely when he’d taken the job, so it would have been  _ completely pointless  _ for him to have accepted it in the first place. Thankfully, though, he’d managed to save the program, almost entirely based on his good looks and wit alone, and he felt confident in his job security.

Everybody knew Mr. Palmer. The dude was impossible to miss, with shockingly blond hair and sleeves of purple tattoos peeking out from under the cuffed sleeves of his shirts. He opened every class with a photo of his cat, Khoshekh, and was well-known for his tangents about whatever was happening in the town. He could make a description of a rock interesting.

So on the first day of his third year at the school, he was feeling pretty damn good about himself.

This year, he had a prep period first thing in the morning, and he took the chance to stretch his legs, check out the renovations that they’d done to the science wing over the summer. He ambled down the white tile hallways, admiring his reflection in the stones. Chatter escaped one classroom with its door wide open, and he hesitated outside to try to hear what was going on. Last year’s science teacher, Mr. Telly Barber, had quit after an incident with a cactus and a pair of scissors, He had a feeling that this was his old classroom with the new teacher. 

He heard a warning of “Stay back, kids!”, a scraping sound, and a dull rumble.

The hallway lit up with bright purple light, and he was thrown against the far wall.

“Oh, God, I think that was a person,” the teacher said, and he led a group of the students to the door, where they gawked at Mr. Palmer as he picked himself up off the ground, feeling as if all of the tiles on the wall were now filling his spine. “Oh, whoops. Are you okay?”

He nodded and held up his hand, coughing. “What was that?”

“That, my friend, was  _ science. _ ”

“I think science just blew out my back.”

He smiled gently and extended a hand, a white flag in itself. He glanced over the new teacher’s face. His age, maybe a year or two older. Crooked rectangular classes, long, black hair tied back behind his head, A white lab coat hung to his knees, and soft brown eyes that barely hid laughter. “My name is Mr. Carlos,” he said. “I’m a scientist.”

After a moment, he wrapped his hand around the other man’s and said, “I’m Mr. Palmer. I’m the Public Presentation teacher, upstairs. It’s nice to meet you. What… what class is that? Chemistry?”

He frowned and shook his head, as if Cecil had just suggested that he was teaching the kids how to fly around on brooms, and he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of irritation. “I just told you, Mr. Palmer. I’m a scientist. I teach science.”

“Well, I’ll see you around, Mr. Carlos.” He cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder at the staircase. For some odd reason, his face was beginning to flush a hot red. “I’ve got to set up my first class of the day.”

* * *

 

Of course, Mr. Carlos was hanging around in the teacher’s lounge at lunch, picking at a salad while Cecil fumbled with the coffee machine. “If only the administration would replace this machine,” he grumbled, glancing out of the corners of his eyes to see if Mr. Carlos would react. “It’s almost as old as the building itself.” When the other teacher gave no sign of hearing, he rose his voice and continued, “I said-”

“C-eight-H-ten-N-O-two.” Mr. Carlos rattled the formula off as if he’d been waiting for the opportunity. 

Cecil cleared his throat and turned. “What’s that?”

He nodded at the mug in his hands. “They say it has addictive properties. Be careful, Mr. Palmer.” He stood and cleared the plastic container of his salad just as the bell rang, and he slipped out of the lounge, leaving a dumbstruck Cecil clutching a mug to his chest.

“Did you just imply that I do meth?” he shouted. 

* * *

 

After school, Cecil headed out to the Desert Flower Bowling Lanes and Arcade Fun Complex for a nice, relaxing round of bowling, or so he hoped until the moment he stepped in the door. Because there he was, there he  _ fucking  _ was. With a perfect smirk and perfect hair and a perfect strike, laughing and high-fiving Old Woman Josie and Steve Carlsburg and several other people he did not recognize, but who all were wearing pristine white lab coats and goggles. He groaned dramatically and threw his head back like a petulant teenager, and the moment he heard Mr. Carlos’ laughter, his face, once again, began to burn. He sulked up to the bowling team. “Hello, Mr. Palmer!” he said, clapping him on the shoulder with a huge, square hand. “Nice to see you joining us. Steve here invited me out. He said it was to welcome me to the town.”

Of  _ course _ it was Steve. Steve ruined  _ everything. _ He narrowed his eyes at his brother-in-law, who just smiled good-naturedly in a way that made Cecil hate him  _ even more.  _ Nonetheless, he said, “You can call me Cecil, since we’re not at work.”

“Well, then, you can call me Carlos!”

_ Carlos? Wait, does this guy make his students call him by his first name- _

“And these are my student teachers.”

They all waved at Cecil in eerie synchrony. Several of them were holding odd, flashing devices. One of them was holding a portable seismograph up to the bowling ball. Now, Cecil wasn’t the best at bowling, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t how you were supposed to do it. 

They bowled two games, and then Carlos was saying goodnight and Steve was hanging off of Cecil’s arm, saying that his car had been commandeered by the Secret Police while they were there and he  _ really _ didn’t want to walk  _ all the way _ back home and could Cecil possibly drive him home, he’d owe him one - 

“Actually,” Old Woman Josie said, “I think I can drive you. I have to go to the grocery store, so I’ll be swinging by your house anyway.”

“Oh, never mind then!” he said brightly. 

As soon as he was out of earshot - no, why lie, he was nowhere near out of earshot - Cecil groaned, “Thank  _ God.  _ That guy drives me  _ up the wall. _ ”

“Isn’t he your brother-in-law?” Carlos asked. He walked  _ very close _ to Cecil as they started towards his car, so that his hand brushed ever-so-slightly against the back of Cecil’s. It felt like his heart was trying to escape through his mouth, and he was pretty sure he’d gotten all of his vaccinations that year, so it  _ couldn’t _ be throat spiders. 

“Yeah, but he’s just  _ so annoying. _ ”

“Now I’m a little scared to ask you for a ride home. I think I missed the last bus.” 

He stumbled in shock, then stooped to pretend to tie his shoelace in an attempt to cover his tracks. “Mmph. Well, you’re not Steve, so I think I’ll make an exception for you.” 

Carlos hopped into the passenger side, and they sat in the stiff silence in the few moments where Cecil was fumbling for his keys with fingers that suddenly seemed to have forgotten how to work. Carlos wordlessly leaned across the center and pushed the key into the slot. The radio hummed to life, and he embarrassedly jammed at it until it settled on a pop station in case Carlos thought his music taste was weird. Why was he acting like this? Why was he freaking out? Why were the windows vibrating a little? Were vibrating windows a sign of a crush? God, he hadn’t had a crush since high school, he didn’t remember -

“Cecil?”

“Yeah?” he asked, a little too loud, wide-eyed, staring directly through the windshield while clutching the steering wheel like it was a life preserver. 

“Are you going to… drive?”

“YEAH.”

* * *

 

They reached Carlos’ house in a speed that seemed to exist outside of time itself, although that could have just been the new town ordinance that paused time after 10:30 every night. Carlos got out of the car, and Cecil, absurdly, walked him to his front door. They stared at each other while the welcome mat stood between them, either a wingman or a third wheel, and neither was sure which one.

“C-eight-h-eleven-n-oh-two,” Cecil blurted.

“What?”

“C-eight-h-eleven-n-oh-two,” he repeated. “You said it to me at lunch. It’s some sort of chemical formula, right? What is it?”

Carlos chuckled and scuffed his feet across the mat. Was it just Cecil, or did he look almost… embarrassed… in the flickering glow of his porchlight? Just as he began to answer, he jabbed a finger at it and said, “I know an angel that can fix that for you- ohgodyouweretalkingi’msorryi’llstopnow.”

“Dopamine,” he said. “It’s the chemical formula for dopamine.” 

Cecil blinked rapidly and tugged at his tie. Carlos removed his glasses and rubbed them clean on his shirt. “So, not meth?” 

“Not meth.”

They remained, frozen, on that porch. “Well, I guess I’ll be going, then.” 

“I guess you will.” 

“I’ll… see you tomorrow, then.”

“I will see you tomorrow, then.” 

Cecil took a deep breath and turned back towards his car. 

“Hey, wait.” 

He paused, electricity (or maybe bees) humming in his veins. Carlos was holding something out towards him - in a single, deflating moment, he recognized it. “You dropped your wallet.”

“Thanks, Carlos. See you tomorrow.”

He was halfway back to his car when that now-familiar voice groaned “oh,  _ fuck it _ ” and crossed the gap between the two of them in three quick strides. 

He wrapped his arm around Cecil’s waist and kissed him, and Cecil was kissing back, running his hands through that perfect hair and feeling those perfect lips against his, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he was going to be late to school tomorrow, and he didn’t even care. There was no way he could care. Not right now. As Carlos spun him around, he felt his back twinge. 


End file.
